


Brother

by aliziranCrimson



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Canon Non-Binary Character, F/F, Gaslighting, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, If You Squint - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lesbian Vampires, Murder, Scary, Trans Female Character, Vampires, i think i tagged everything relevant, this one is spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:22:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26865853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliziranCrimson/pseuds/aliziranCrimson
Summary: She doesn't have a brother.
Relationships: Reyn/Ash, if you squint
Kudos: 5





	Brother

**Author's Note:**

> hey come look at this spooky fic about my OCs! will i ever write for a fandom again? who knows! certainly not me!

She’s five years old, not yet a girl. She’s been in this home for less than a month, and she’s trying to fit in. Some of the other kids are mean to her, like they can smell that she’s different. But some of them are nice. She’s playing with those kids, avoiding the mean ones, when they’re called in for lunch. They have to sit down at the formal dining table and say grace before they can eat.

A boy she’s never seen before sits next to her. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make any odd moves, but she knows immediately there’s something wrong. He looks way too similar to her, with too big eyes that are too blue, and when he smiles at her the teeth look all wrong.

“Who is that?” she asks one of her caregivers, pointing at the boy.

“Now is not the time for games, eat your lunch,” she’s told. She doesn’t understand, she’s not playing a game.

“Who is that boy?” she asks later.

“That’s your brother, silly!” she’s told. She doesn’t understand again.

“I don’t have a brother,” she says. Her caregivers ask if she and Nikolas have been fighting. She doesn’t know who Nikolas is. She insists she doesn’t have a brother. At first her caregivers seem to find it amusing, but by the time dinner rolls around they’ve had enough. She’s told that if she doesn’t stop with this game she’ll be sent to bed without dinner. She stops, but she leans away when he sits next to her again.

When it’s time for bed, the boy is put to bed next to her, in what was previously an empty bed. She doesn’t want to sleep in the same room as him. He’s scary and she doesn’t know who he is. She doesn’t have a brother. She starts to cry.

They scold her, demand that she stop crying, tell her that tomorrow she won’t be allowed to play outside. She doesn’t stop. They tell her that she’s being rude, they tell her to apologize to Nikolas. She doesn’t know who that is. She doesn’t have a brother!

She doesn’t get paddled often, but they paddle her that night. She’s put to bed with no bedtime story, and the door to her room shuts, leaving her in the dark with the boy. She’s still sniffling, and when she looks over he’s watching her. She knows because his eyes reflect the light of the moon from the window. She covers her head and hides.

This repeats several more times over the next week. Phone calls are made. A nice lady in a sweater talks to her. They all insist Nikolas has always been there. They tell her that he’s been there since the day she was born. They tell her that she and Nikolas are twins. They show her a piece of paper that she can’t read, that is supposed to prove that he’s always been there.

She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t have a brother.

The lady in the sweater comes back every week. She says the same things. She says it’s okay to be mad sometimes. She says that it’s okay to fight with your siblings. She says that doesn’t make it okay to say mean things though. She says to think about how this makes Nikolas feel. They bring Nikolas in, make him sit next to her, and talk about how he feels.

He says he’s not mad at her. That he forgives her. He says he loves her. He hugs her and she screams.

More phone calls are made. She overhears the grown-ups talking. The lady in the sweater says these things happen with children abandoned so young. She says that no matter what, they can’t split the twins up. That she will get over this, and that her bond with Nikolas will be even stronger for it.

Even at five years old, she knows when she’s been beaten.

She stops saying she doesn’t have a brother. She stops crying when they go to bed. She even tries talking to him. He likes the same things she does; playing in the sandbox, swinging, Saturday morning cartoons. Sometimes she forgets that there’s something wrong about him. Sometimes she thinks he might be human.

Eventually the lady in the sweater stops coming to talk to her. She’s starting to really like Nikolas. Having a brother isn’t so bad.

Then Nikolas hurts another kid.

She isn’t looking when it happens. She only turns when she hears the scream. The other child is on the ground, and there’s so much blood. An ambulance comes to take the child to the hospital.

Nikolas says it was an accident. She isn’t so sure. She starts to feel afraid of him again.

They have to move to a new house after that. They make her go with him, even though she didn’t do anything wrong.

The next house isn’t as nice. Her caregivers are mean. She gets paddled a lot.

Nikolas hurts one of the grown-ups this time. She dropped a glass of milk, and it broke. The grown-ups start screaming at her. She’s going to get paddled again. They call her a fuck up. They tell her that her mother didn’t love her. They tell her that she does everything wrong. The paddle hurts worse than usual, because she was paddled yesterday too. She keeps trying to get away, but that just makes them paddle her harder. It hurts so bad she can’t breathe.

Then it stops. Nikolas is helping her up. When she looks at the grown-up, there’s blood coming out of their nose.

They move again. She doesn’t mind this time. She knows Nikolas will protect her.

They move a lot. Nikolas hurts a lot of people. Sometimes it scares her, but sometimes he’s not so bad. Sometimes they fight, and he grabs her too hard, but that’s the worst he does.

As they get older, Nikolas gets smarter. He becomes less violent. He learns not to get caught. He learns new ways to control people. He learns new ways to control her. She starts to forget that she didn’t always have a brother. She learns to ignore the feelings she gets sometimes. She convinces herself he’s always been there.

They age out of the system. They get turned out on their asses with nothing. By now Nikolas has all the tools he needs to become a con artist. For a while it seems like he’s over hurting people and more interested in taking their money. They drift, running scams, taking advantage of people. Nikolas buys her drugs to keep her under control. They live out of hotel rooms.

One night he’s out late. She’s high as a kite but even she can tell he’s been gone too long. Then the door to their room bursts open as he stumbles in. He slams the door and locks it, and when he turns around she sees he’s covered in blood. He’s panting, wild eyed, grin too wide with teeth too sharp. She suddenly remembers she never had a brother.

He starts hurting people again. All her repressed memories of their childhood come flooding back. She’s afraid of him just as much as she was when she was five. He threatens her, tells her that if she doesn’t help him then she will be next. She doesn’t doubt him. She goes to bed every night terrified. She doesn’t have a brother.

The next mark on his list is a beautiful blonde girl he sees in a coffee shop. She’s wearing long sleeves in August, carrying a parasol. Despite window seats available, she sits in a corner, away from everyone. She introduces herself as Reyn, and asks her name.

Ash, she says, nervous that she will question it. She doesn’t. Reyn is fascinating, well read, and alluring. There’s something inhuman about her, some vibe she gives off that seems unreal. Ash flirts for real, not just to get her to come back to the hotel with her. It isn’t until they’re standing in front of the door that Ash remembers what is waiting behind it.

She knows if she goes in empty handed, Nikolas will turn on her. She hasn’t failed him yet, and she doesn’t want to know what will happen if she does. But she can’t lead this girl to her death. She hesitates, turns around to say something, to tell her to run.

Reyn puts a hand on Ash’s shoulder, peers over her sunglasses, and tells her everything will be alright.

Ash has never felt more calm in her life. Even her highs have never felt so relaxing. In that moment, she believes- she knows- that what Reyn says is true. She opens the door, leading Reyn inside.

Nikolas is waiting, thrumming with anticipation. He grins at her, mouth full of fangs. Reyn doesn’t blink. She closes her parasol, then with a twist she pulls a dagger from within the handle.

Nikolas charges, pinning her to the door. Reyn pushes back, making his arms tremble with force. Ash knows how strong he is, inhumanly strong, and yet she’s pushing him away without breaking a sweat.

He’s never met his match before, and he’s bewildered.

“What are you?” he asks.

“A good old fashioned vampire,” she says. “And you’re a mimic. We’ve been tracking you for the last two weeks. You won’t be leaving this room.”

“If you’re a monster too, why kill me? Why protect the humans? Why don’t you kill them too?” he asks.

“Because some of us want to leave this world better than we found it,” she says. This enrages him, and he begins to lose form.

Ash has never seen what he really looks like. Sometimes the veneer slips, but never does it shatter. Now it has shattered.

His limbs elongate, his skin turns pale as snow, and his fingers grow claws. His mouth splits his face in half, rows and rows of fangs dripping with saliva.

Reyn does not flinch, and she does not wait for him to make a move. She darts forward, faster than should be possible, and slices him across the chest. He shrieks, the wound sizzling like the dagger was coated in acid. He bleeds black ooze, looking confused. No one has ever hurt him before.

“Silver dagger,” she says. “Gets rid of most monsters.”

They clash again, each trying to get the upper hand. In his true form, Nikolas seems stronger, and Ash is beginning to worry he will win the fight. She does the only thing she can think of; she grabs a hotel lamp and smashes it over his head. He tosses Reyn aside, then rounds on Ash. She’s certain this is her end as he stalks forward.

He gets almost close enough to strike, before letting out a blood curdling shriek. He goes limp, collapsing to the floor, Reyn standing behind him with an oil slick dagger. She drops to her knees, making one decisive blow to his chest, stabbing him in the heart. He weakly shrieks, then falls still.

Reyn stands, wiping her dagger on the bed clothes. She looks at Ash, giving her a smile.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

Ash can’t speak. It’s over. She can’t believe it’s over. She can’t believe she’s alone.

She breaks down, sobbing from the stress, sobbing from the fear, sobbing from the grief. Reyn comforts her, quietly petting her hair.

Once she calms down, Reyn asks if she has anywhere to go. Ash tells her no, that Nikolas was all she had. Reyn offers to get her a new hotel, and money to help her sort her life out. Ash tells her that she doesn’t have a life to sort out. Nikolas was everything. Nikolas was all she had. Nikolas was all she ever had. She doesn’t want to be alone.

Reyn is quiet for a moment, then speaks.

“You could come with us,” she says.

“Us?” Ash asks.

“My friends and I are hunters. We travel, protecting people from monsters. Dean is a witch, James is an exorcist, and I’m a vampire. You can travel with us as long as you want. We don’t have much, but you’re welcome to anything we have,” she says.

“You barely know me. What if I’m what he was?” Ash says.

“You aren’t. You’re just a good person that got wrapped up in a bad situation. I think I understand that better than most. I think all of us do,” Reyn says.

Ash is quiet for a moment, and then she says, “Okay.”

Reyn smiles, and while Ash can clearly see her fangs, she’s not afraid. She takes Reyn’s hand as she picks up her parasol, opening it as they walk out of the room. In the parking lot is a van with an airbrushed mural, a boy with curly blonde hair behind the wheel. Someone with purple hair and cateye glasses leans forward to see them.

“You get it?” they ask.

“Yep, all taken care of!” Reyn says. Reyn opens the side panel of the van, letting Ash get in first, then hops in and closes the door. There’s a wheelchair in the back of the van.

“This the girl?” they ask.

“Yes, this is Ash. She’ll be traveling with us, at least for a while,” Reyn says.

“Sounds good to me, I’m Dean. That’s James,” Dean says, pointing to the boy behind the wheel.

“Where to next?” Reyn asks.

“Found a possible possession in Coal Creek. Take us a little less than an hour to get there,” James says, pulling out of the parking lot.

“You hungry?” Dean asks Ash. “I’m hungry. We need to get food first. I want veggie lo mein.”

“You’re the navigator,” James says, and Dean starts searching for a restaurant on their phone.

“Welcome to our weird little family,” Reyn says.

For the first time ever, Ash feels like she’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> hey, thanks for getting through that! if you like what you read and wanna know more about my OCs, come talk to my on tumblr at alizirancrimson.tumblr.com, or my OC blog zads-ocs.tumblr.com! ive got damn near 200 of them, im sure we'll find one you love!


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